...
Register for free to join our community of investors and share your ideas. You will also get access to streaming quotes, interactive charts, trades, portfolio, live options flow and more tools.
Register for free to join our community of investors and share your ideas. You will also get access to streaming quotes, interactive charts, trades, portfolio, live options flow and more tools.
Yeah I have an IPF alert and noticed they came up recently with them doing some sort of research collaboration.
Definitely not a car person! I guess her management background is what made her attractive to BWA unless cell biology helps with fuel cells
I will certainly concede more often than not these things tend to be nothing but I was curious about her and looked up her BMY Bio
http://www.bms.com/ourcompany/leadership/Pages/vicki_sato_bio.aspx
In the interest of speculation here are a few things that give credence to possibly more to it:
1) In addition to PKI she is a director of BorgWarner (a company I never heard of) and GLPG only mentioned BMY and specifically mentioned about a conflict of interest.
2) The PR says she was a director of GLPG since 2011 and checking BMY she was from at least 2009 (I only checked back that far). So its not as if she just came into a conflict by joining one or the other.
An alternate simple explanation is one or the other recently became involved in a program which puts her in a position of conflict.
GLPG:
The stock was up a notable amount today. They did issue a PR about a board member leaving which one would think would be slightly negative (if anything) but there are two curious sentences (my highlight below).
http://finance.yahoo.com/news/vicki-sato-resigns-galapagos-board-063438579.html
Vicki Sato resigns from Galapagos Board
MECHELEN, Belgium, Jan. 9, 2015 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Galapagos NV (GLPG.NX) announces the resignation of Dr Vicki Sato as a member of its Board of Directors, effective 31 December 2014.
Dr Sato has been a member of the Galapagos Board since 2011. She is also a member of the Bristol-Myers Squibb Board of Directors. Dr Sato is leaving the Board of Galapagos to avoid any potential conflicts of interest.
"We wish to thank Vicki for her strong contribution to the evolution of Galapagos into a full-fledged, mature therapeutic pipeline company," said Dr Raj Parekh, Chairman of the Board of Directors of Galapagos. "We wish Vicki much success going forward."
The ask is now .44. Even though that is a big spread from the bid IMO that isn't exactly expensive considering BV, NOL's and if they are really capable of executing on growing the pharmacy business via growing business and acquisition. What we don't know yet is how profitable and what type of synergy/added new revenue they can drive to the new acquisitions. If they do that well this stock is mult-bag potential once people discover it.
In the (second) Vertex book they spent a good deal talking about that (I vaguely recall the incident) where the street got all worried about what turned out to be an error and under reporting of Incivek numbers. They talked about vertex trying to get (I believe it was IMS) to issue a PR about it too.
ASDS:
They certainly could do a better job at providing better color on not only the projections but what they paid (what I always like to know).
Looking at the past comments/numbers though I'd either say they are either conservative or things aren't completely clear on terms/etc. Just doing some (very) rough calculations in '13 total revenue (not just pharmacy though most was) was 25M. They did two deals in August & September '14 that they said would add 6 million on an annual basis so call it 2.5M for '14 that comes out to 27.5 and they are saying 29 for '14 which means the base business will grow by about 1.5M or 6%.
At this valuation I am quite comfortable even if the base business isn't growing but I think it is. I haven't talked to management to get clarity on things. I'll probably wait till they file their annual to see what thing I'd like more clarity on.
ASDS: .27 - .2899
They announced another acquisition yesterday and gave some added details on '14 revenue and what the 3 recent pharmacy acquisitions should add to the top line in '15.
It remains to be seen how much they add to the bottom line but they seem to be doing exactly what they said and they have 40M+ in NOL's to utilize. If one looks at BV its pretty cheap as is. If they can grow their existing pharmacies AND acquire a couple a year they will be a pretty nice growth story too.
http://ascendantsolutions.com/profiles/investor/ResLibraryView.asp?ResLibraryID=74632&GoTopage=1&Category=2140&BzID=2233&G=865
Ascendant Solutions, Inc. Announces Completion of Third Pharmacy Acquisition by Its Dougherty's Holdings Subsidiary
DALLAS, Jan. 8, 2015 /PRNewswire/ -- Ascendant Solutions, Inc. (Pink Sheets: ASDS) ("Ascendant" or the "Company") today announced that its Healthcare subsidiary, Dougherty's Holdings, has acquired McCrory's Pharmacy ("McCrory"), located in El Paso, Texas.
The McCrory acquisition is expected to add approximately $8 million in annual revenues to Ascendant's results. In total, Ascendant's three recent acquisitions (including McCrory's) should boost sales for Dougherty's Holdings 25 percent to over $37 million in 2015, compared to estimated 2014 sales of $29 million.
For more than 56 years, McCrory's Pharmacy has provided retail prescriptions, sterile and non-sterile compounded prescriptions, hormone testing, diabetes support, and home healthcare services and equipment for customers in and around the El Paso area.
Mark Heil, President and CFO of Ascendant, stated, "We are very excited to add McCrory's to our family of Dougherty's Pharmacy locations. Given McCrory's excellent reputation as the premier independent pharmacy in El Paso, we intend to continue to operate this pharmacy under the McCrory's name. As with previous acquisitions, we look forward to expanding McCrory's robust retail and compounding business. McCrory's commitment to service and quality aligns perfectly with Dougherty's Pharmacy in Dallas, where we have provided health care services for our customers for almost a century."
About Dougherty's Pharmacy
Dougherty's Pharmacy has been the premier pharmacy in Dallas since 1929, offering a wide variety of products and services to customers, including prescriptions, compounds, durable medical equipment, nutritional products, diabetic supplies and a host of other health and wellness products and services.
About Ascendant Solutions, Inc.
Ascendant Solutions, Inc. is a value-oriented investment firm focused on successfully acquiring, managing and growing community-based pharmacies in the Southwest Region. Ascendant currently has approximately $43 million in net operating loss carryforwards which can be used to shelter future income, thus enhancing free cash flow or debt service capabilities. Interested investors can access financials and stock trading information for Ascendant at OTCMarkets.com or at www.ascendantsolutions.com.
Forward-Looking Statements
This press release contains forward-looking statements within the meaning of the Securities Act of 1933, the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 and the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Such statements are based upon management's current expectations, projections, estimates and assumptions. These forward-looking statements may be identified by words such as "expects," "believes," "anticipates" and similar expressions. Forward-looking statements involve risks and uncertainties that may cause future results to differ materially from those suggested by the forward-looking statements. The Company undertakes no obligation to publicly release the result of any revisions to these forward-looking statements that may be made to reflect any future events or circumstances.
To view the original version on PR Newswire, visit:http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/ascendant-solutions-inc-announces-completion-of-third-pharmacy-acquisition-by-its-doughertys-holdings-subsidiary-300017939.html
SOURCE Ascendant Solutions, Inc.
Here is the article
http://www.biospace.com/news_story.aspx?StoryID=360482&full=1&utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter
(Sorry I can't give credit to where I got it, didn't save, but it was someone I follow on twitter though )
I thought they had guaranteed jobs for all employees for quite some time sure enough I looked it up on an 8/25/14 presentation (I think I got it from an SEC filing). It has the (perhaps carefully worded phrase):
"ALL InterMune employees are guaranteed their comparable aggregate target compensation and benefits through the end of 2015" [bold and underline in presentation]. So I guess they will be getting a nice severance.
After $8.3 Billion Sale to Roche (RHHBY), InterMune, Inc. (ITMN) Chief Jumps to Venture Capital
http://www.biospace.com/news_story.aspx?StoryID=360327&full=1&utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter
Maybe Don Santel should be looking over his shoulder?
There was also an article on Roche cutting 170(?) of the former InterMune employees by end of February.
What about GLPG they have a JAK partnership with Phase 2B read out this year and their CF potentiator/corrector partnership. I guess if you can't buy one big company buyout all your partners .
UTHR is webcasting both which is quite a shocker as they often don't even webcast the presentation. @bradloncar has been vocal on twitter about companies doing that and indicated he wrote UTHR (amongst others). So good job to him and to Adam Feuerstein for recently writing about it.
I am in strong agreement about companies doing this. Once this becomes the norm the next step should be these Analyst hosted calls available to clients only (ITMN made one available shortly after, I believe in part because of possible material information disclosed).
Am just catching up with the GS AbbVie call from earlier today. No surprise revelations but the general tone seems consistent with what Dew and others have said about a duopoly.
The webcast can be accessed here:
http://cc.talkpoint.com/gold006/010615a_ae/
Webcast Calendar
[Please see updating procedure at
the end of this post. All times are
U.S. ET unless indicated otherwise.]
NOTE: ANYONE MAY UPDATE THIS FILE
Edits: Removed entries > ~1 Month Old, Added/Updated January-March events
Goldman Sachs Healthcare CEOs Unscripted Conference
1/6
http://cc.talkpoint.com/gold006/010615a_ae/
Halozyme to Host Analyst and Investor Meeting
1/7 10:00 AM EST
http://services.choruscall.com/links/halo150107.html
Biotech Showcase 2015
1/12-14
http://www.ebdgroup.com/bts/presenters/prs_schedule.php
33rd JP Morgan Annual Healthcare Conference
1/12-16
http://jpmorgan.metameetings.com/confbook/healthcare15/login.php
Noble Financial Capital Markets D2 - Decade Two - Investor Conference
1/18-21
http://www.nobleresearch.com/D2/theAGENDA.htm
BIO CEO & Investor Conference
2/9-10
https://www.bio.org/events/conferences/bio-ceo-investor-conference
Leerink Global Healthcare Conference
2/11-12
http://www.leerink.com/news-and-events/
http://leerink.metameetings.com/confbook/healthcare15 ???
SunTrust Robinson Humphrey Biotechnology and Pharmaceutical One-on-One Orphan Drug Day
2/23
Cowen and Company 35th Annual Health Care Conference
3/2-4
Morgan Stanley European Medtech Conference
3/3
ROTH Capital Partners 27th Annual OC Growth Stock Conference
3/8-11
http://www.wsw.com/webcast/roth29/
BioCentury’s Future Leaders in the Biotech Industry Conference
3/20
--
Procedure for Updating Calendar
When adding or modifying entries, please follow these steps:
1. Copy the complete text from the old calendar.
2. Make your additions or modifications, inserting new items in alphabetical or chronological order as the case may be.
3. Near the top of the message, give a very brief description of your changes (e.g. “Edits: Added JPMorgan conference”).
4. Post the updated calendar in a new message as a reply to the message with the old calendar.
OCRX:
What do you dislike about the 2B design is it that both arms get SOC? The dose is 2x the investigator sponsored trials which surprised me a bit. I was disappointed with the slow enrollment they said its picked up a bit (I think they may have loosened some enrollment criteria but by memory don't recall what)
I am long the stock (though not one of my bigger positions).
Maybe they should buy ESRX
I've read a few different analysis on it from the kids are throwing more (travel leagues) to its just being diagnosed better/earlier. I don't know. I certainly think its not coincidence that almost every team has 2-3 guys out of the pen that throw 95+! When I was a kid an MLB pitcher threw hard if he hit low 90's and only a couple in the league could go above 95. I wasn't much of a pitcher but seems to me just (trying to) throw a curve as kid put strain on my elbow some of these "newer" pitches seem to put a lot more strain on the elbow since they mimic a curve but are actually thrown at a hard speed.
John Hart seems to be trying to build up the farm system/young controllable arms with a lot of upside but perhaps some risk (like TJ). I am ever the optimist and see them pulling off a miracle in '15 but I think the GM is looking at '17/'18. They say no but I wouldn't be shocked if they trade Kimbrel but it would have to be a really great deal (he is signed to a bargain rate by todays standards).
Thanks both for the scouting report and the Young Guidry I hope he pans out too .
I was just going to ask you about Banuelos. I think the Braves were short on pitchers who had TJ (after not resigning Medlen, Beachy and Gearrin) so its good to get a second one (in addition to the one from the SD Upton trade) .
I wasn't much of a Carpenter fan not just because he blew the playoffs in 2013 I just didn't feel comfortable with him in pressure situations. Shreve I can't really comment much on I didn't follow him in the minors and missed a lot of baseball last year to know him well.
I haven't looked was more going by this chart
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=109452947
Note that the chart is applications and not issued though with so many it may be worthwhile to do a patent search to see if one can garner anything worthwile.
With all those patent applications I wonder if they already are.
NRX:
I am not familiar with them but noticed they were up over 100% after hours (not a lot of volume though) on not having effect on QT/QTc. Was this a concern for their drug or is it just a low volume over reaction?
http://finance.yahoo.com/news/nephrogenex-announces-positive-results-qt-210500634.html
Biotechs Ranked by Number of Phase 3 Trials
again h/t to @OphirGottlieb
full image @https://pbs.twimg.com/media/B6DqQEtCQAEXv4B.png
Not sure if the caption is accurate pre- clinical trials?
again h/t to @OphirGottlieb
full image @ https://pbs.twimg.com/media/B6Dt2f-CMAAjjiL.png:large
edit: I am not sure how this information was gathered I went to the website of Enzymotec (enzy) and I didn't see products in development (there products seemed like supplements) unless they have licenses, royalties or some other interest.
A somewhat interesting though hard to derive true value from chart.
h/t to @OphirGottlieb
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/B6DscTmCEAESv5f.png:large
Maybe a dumb question since I am not a science guy BUT I'll ask anyway . Why don't companies use PEGylation more when developing a protein with potential or even theoretical immunogenicity? Isn't PEG technology fairly advanced that the benefits outway the risks/delays needed to go back and apply it?
A couple articles on parents starting drug companies to try to help their children.
One Dad’s 14-Year Quest for Cure
http://www.wsj.com/articles/one-dads-14-year-quest-for-childrens-cure-1419639957
This article is about Pompe/Amicus/John Crowley
For those interested I would recommend the book by the same author its a little bit old (also movie available) not too heavy on the science as I recall and almost reads like a drama/novel.
When Parents Start Companies to Cure Their Children
http://www.wsj.com/articles/when-parents-start-companies-to-cure-their-children-1419639500
Don't envy anyone needing to be in that position but Wall St. Journal has a few links of organizations that may help get you started at least.
http://blogs.wsj.com/briefly/2014/12/26/when-your-childs-rare-disease-has-no-cure-the-short-answer/
Its a nice source of ideas too (it would be nice to see those that get ideas show appreciation to the winners charity). One of my favorite stocks, GENT, I had never heard of until I saw it picked by a few people one year (I think it was actually picked in prior years but I missed it).
As an added bonus we get to test "BulbaMan's" skills of diplomacy
JP Morgan
Its not up with the company list yet (though I've seen some companies PRing there presentation time already) but I believe the link will be:
http://jpmorgan.metameetings.com/confbook/healthcare15/
I don't get it (some) people think there have never been competing drugs on the market that didn't result in a price war. I can think of quite a few and one of them actually (though not identical) was similar and also in hepatitis C. It could easily be argued that there was more of a reason to compete on price because of a small differentiation in products (for those too young Pegasys and Peg-Intron coincidentally SGP/MRK paid a meaningful royalty to Enzon the supplier of the PEG technology for the later).
Its very early stage so I would guess on the low side if they license it this early (which they seem to want to do). A rough ballpark analog is to look at what BMRN did when they were desperately struggling to survive and licensed to Merck Serono x-US rights (here is the filing).
http://www.secinfo.com/duvJ5.z2f4.htm
At that time it was thought it could work in multiple diseases and they had (still have) an option on PEG-PAL.
Kuvan was at an early stage too but I believe in the clinc already and BH4 had a lot of data on it to make Kuvan approval probably one of the fastest approvals from start to finish.
Its not clear (to me) if this would compete with PEG-PAL (i.e. allow for pfe lowering to normal/near normal without dietary restrictions). If they can get it to normal levels I'd wonder why BMRN wouldn't pay up for this. On the surface it would avoid a lot of the headaches of PEG-PAL. I believe Altus Pharma (no longer in existence) had an oral candidate as well which like Codexis thought they could overcome one of the key obstacles of the enzyme surviving in the pH of the stomach. Incidental if they can do this it may open the doors for other drugs too.
ASPX:
I missed the webcast but the replay should be here shortly (isn't available yet):
http://investor.auspexpharma.com/events.cfm
There is a PDF presentation at the above link
Direct links are below (not sure if they will work or not)
Webcast: http://edge.media-server.com/m/p/yqmhm9i9
Presentation: http://files.shareholder.com/downloads/AMDA-2IEHYZ/3734449048x0x799796/3130E7B1-490E-4DBF-A938-B91779C9DEFD/December_2014_Results_FINAL.pdf
BMRN / CDXS (PKU):
I am long BMRN though I've lost a fair amount of enthusiasm for their PKU Progam (both Kuvan and PEG-PAL). Kuvan never met sales expectations and had some efficacy limitations (along with IP limations). PEG-PAL has faced numerous delays and dosing/tolerability issues. It seems like there is still considerable efficacy potential but dosing/titrating may limit its potential. By chance I caught part of a presentation of a company I briefly owned and to my surprise discovered they are working on an Oral candidate for PKU. Their business isn't in drug development so they are looking to license their PKU product but it may be an interesting stock to watch given their market cap.
Here is Codexis PR and link to the LD Micro webcast where they mention it.
http://finance.yahoo.com/news/codexis-uses-codeevolver-r-protein-233820703.html
http://wsw.com/webcast/ldmicro7/cdxs/
Is your post related to PRTA's amyloidosis announcement? I have been considering a position and suspect the aftermarket bounce of ~2 dollars is not warranted and may not carry over to regular hours on this announcement alone. I don't remember if it was the amyloidosis that you found more interesting or the collaboration with Roche for Parkinson’s.
RARE:
Phase 3 Study of MPS 7 (Sly syndrome)
The PR had a few somewhat significant changes from traditional rare disease trials that I found noteworthy and perhaps indicative of the more favorable regulatory environment by both FDA and EMA.
The full PR is here:
http://ir.ultragenyx.com/releasedetail.cfm?ReleaseID=887649
And these are some of the things I found noteworth:
1. 12 patients between 5 and 35 years of age.
2. four groups. One cohort begins rhGUS therapy immediately, while the other three start on placebo and cross over to rhGUS at different predefined time points in a blinded manner. This novel trial design generates treatment data from all 12 patients, improving the statistical power of the study relative to a traditional parallel-group design.
3. Agreement with the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) was reached that their evaluation of the pivotal Phase 3 study will be based on the totality of the data on a patient-by-patient basis. FDA advised against the declaration of a primary clinical endpoint in order to allow for more flexibility in the overall efficacy evaluation, appreciating the heterogeneous and rare nature of this disease.
4. The European Medicines Agency (EMA) has already agreed that approval under exceptional circumstances could be possible based upon a single positive Phase 3 study using urinary GAG excretion as the primary endpoint with a trend toward improvement in the most important clinical endpoints (six-minute walk test, forced expiratory volume, spleen/liver volume).
SRPT:
Welcome aboard! I think your post is 100% in agreement with my present thinking in fact most of it is similar logic to what I used to buy about a year ago. I think only one batch is still profitable :(. Lets hope in one years time someone else isn't posting the same thing at a lower stock price .
A CEO who is against a sale makes it more difficulty especially when the board (wrongly so in this case IMO) is strongly supportive of him.
I am long SRPT but don't think they are likely to be bought out unless Garabedian is no longer with the company. I just don't get the impression he would sell out and I doubt he'd even partner. I don't view either of these as positive qualities. I noticed in RNA's acquisition document there was a company that was in the bidding but wouldn't go much higher than the then current market cap. If I thought more of Garabedian I would have that that would have been a good move (try but not go too high). I have nothing material to base it on but I have a strong suspicion BMRN at least approached SRPT in the past 3+ years.